...but to anyone without conscious experience, it comes across as conceptual. What does an orange taste like to one who has only heard a description? Still, such accounts are immensely valuable as pointers toward our true essence of life and being...

Wonderful, powerful words.

In the absence of having an actual experience, all you have is rather shallow and meaningless concepts, whose only value perhaps is in pointing in a certain direction.

Thanks, great description. Funny thing is, I don’t really desire a sense of oneness or other perceptional awareness shifts like I used to, my ordinary awareness is quite satisfactory the way it is. I’m not suffering on a daily basis, that’s good enough for me!

Yes, I hear what you are saying. It’s not about chasing heightened states of awareness - like anything else, they are temporary. I would say that these shifts and openings along the way help inform us of - and attune us to - a deeper, more truthful reality (perhaps not always explicitly so) which is overlooked in our deeply conditioned state.

If seeking has ended (or become irrelevant) for you then a significant shift has occurred at some level (perhaps it works on a more subconscious level with the John Sherman ‘method’.) But as you say, ordinary life goes on as before.

To be honest, I feel more seperateness than oneness, especially around people. I feel the jarring pain others are in sometimes and remember what that’s like. I can be in the moment in the natural world and get absorbed in details and feel great awe and gratitude, but I still feel seperate. I think the purpose of the human experience is actually to feel seperate.....sorry, not running with the usual spiritual plot line here. Dont get me wrong, I would love to have feelings of oneness, but I suspect it’s a state, not a permanent thing.

I’m convinced that John Sherman’s self inquiry technique gets rid of subtle, life fear that is our background constant. And, yes, it’s deeply unconscious. After six years it’s apparent that it takes a long time to get rid of the mechanisms of fear and conditioning, especially if you’re a middle aged guy like me with a lot of baggage. But yes, this process happens at a largely unconscious level.

To be honest, I feel more seperateness than oneness, especially around people. I feel the jarring pain others are in sometimes and remember what that’s like. I can be in the moment in the natural world and get absorbed in details and feel great awe and gratitude, but I still feel seperate. I think the purpose of the human experience is actually to feel seperate.....sorry, not running with the usual spiritual plot line here. Dont get me wrong, I would love to have feelings of oneness, but I suspect it’s a state, not a permanent thing.

I’m convinced that John Sherman’s self inquiry technique gets rid of subtle, life fear that is our background constant. And, yes, it’s deeply unconscious. After six years it’s apparent that it takes a long time to get rid of the mechanisms of fear and conditioning, especially if you’re a middle aged guy like me with a lot of baggage. But yes, this process happens at a largely unconscious level.

No need to apologise - you’re not alone.

But a sense/recognition of no-separation does not mean an absence of the common sense perception of differentiation - which is healthy and necessary. It’s a sense of no separation from (or oneness with) the happening of the moment - as it is. In other words, there is not a me that is somehow separate, independent of or other than this ineffable event of life as it happens.

To be honest, I feel more seperateness than oneness, especially around people. I feel the jarring pain others are in sometimes and remember what that’s like. I can be in the moment in the natural world and get absorbed in details and feel great awe and gratitude, but I still feel seperate. I think the purpose of the human experience is actually to feel seperate.....sorry, not running with the usual spiritual plot line here. Dont get me wrong, I would love to have feelings of oneness, but I suspect it’s a state, not a permanent thing.

Yeah, I hear ya. I think it's the same with me. If anything, Eckhart's teachings and the subsequent realization have made me feel more separate than ever. I wouldn't venture to call it "superiority", but I feel like most people out there are still on the treadmill of conditioned thinking, while I'm somewhat free of it. It is partly a relief, but that's a very small part. Sometimes, I find myself wondering - was it really all that bad being on that treadmill ?

If anything, all this has made me feel even more alone and lonely than I was before. It's as if no one can understand me or my ways of looking at things. I'm in a different world than they are. This applies to a lot of us, here, I'm sure. Imagine you're at a Superbowl party with friends and you suddenly throw out "unconditioned consciousness" or "thoughtless awareness". People would just look at you like you arrived here on a disc-shaped spacecraft, right ? I mean - how many people in your daily life can you really share this with ?

The "human" in "human being" needs to be around other humans and feel understood and appreciated, but not in the way that Eckhart is talking about (that remains hypothetical for most). The human in me craves that very human kind of understanding, with all its flaws. Sometimes, it seems like "human" and "being" represent a conflict of interests. For me.

Also, to me, part of the "human" experience is to be messed up, emotionally and psychologically What kind of being are we trying to create here ?

BTW, Onceler, while I don't doubt that every human experiences a degree of separateness, I also think that that separateness is more intensely felt in those who are more intelligent (IQ/EQ intelligent, not Eckhart's "intelligence"). A long time ago, my suspicion of this was readily confirmed by others with a quick internet search.

There is a strong correlation between 1 - intelligence and suffering, and 2 - intelligence and separateness. They go hand in hand. If I ponder why this is the case, it makes perfect sense. Intelligent people tend to analyze things more deeply and have higher standards. This is a recipe for separateness. You don't run with the pack, you think for yourself.

The simpletons don't suffer as much for a simple reason - they do what they're told, in the way that they're told, when they're told. Told either by their friends, by the politicians and bosses, by the media, or whoever else. Their lives are simpler and they don't suffer as much. You tell them to go plant a bomb somewhere; they'll do it and give you a wide smile to boot. No suffering